Abigail's Cousin (23 page)

Nonetheless there was one servant whom the
qu
een always took with
her wherever she travelled and that was Mistress Abigail Hill.
Another servant, Mrs Danvers a married lady, reported to Jonathon
Swift, ...'that the Queen was very fond of her at the bath, and
that upon Mistress Hill disliking the lodging that was marked for
her ....when there was the most ridiculous scene....and the Queen
going about the room begging her to go to bed, calling her Dear
Hill twenty times over.'

At this particular time she is to be
found
ensconced in
Garden House when the queen made a visit there in early April of
1707. The Queen liked to enjoy a small sleep in the afternoon but
Hill was always on call on the first floor in a room which the
queen has had fitted out as a kitchen and Hill has temporarily
retired here for the duration of the queen's nap. On this
particular day she has had a visitor, her brother, on leave from
the military.

Fulfilling her
former promise the queen has had enquiries made regarding some
small service for her servant and as a result has bought Captain
Stanhope's regiment for Jack Hill who has also taken over his rank
though like the proverbial child seeing another with a better toy,
he is not satisfied and judging that he could do better he is
paying much more attention to his sister this past year than in the
previous twenty.

Captain Jack
Hill however is not, at this moment, concerned with army ranks. As
he sits on the wide window-sill overlooking the garden, his glance
cannot help but stray towards the end of the kitchen table where a
wench is busy with mortar and pestle grinding up the stamens of
some flowers and herbs, a task set for her by her mistress, Abigail
Hill. The captain's eyes are often diverted looking down upon her
from his vantage point especially when the young woman applying
pressure to the pestle, her elbows push against her stomacher,
which in turn, has the effect of elevating her breasts.

The stomacher
is an item of feminine attire which is derived from a medieval
garment used to hang things from and now adapted as a fashionable
item to flatten the stomach. The earlier garment covered the
midriff whereas the 17th century version extended from the waist to
just below the bustline. Its description being, 'a long ornate
panel forming front of an open low-necked bodice with the aim to
heighten effect of decolletage' or, in modern parlance, the
cleavage.

As Jack Hill
looked and leered he began to think of ways of making her closer
acquaintance while his sister busied herself placing items of
crockery on the table, namely bowls and spoons, at the same time
casting an eye at the kettles and pots simmering on the stove. The
aroma of coffee permeated the room as his sister proceeded to carry
out the ritual which at the time was almost akin to kitchen magic
especially because the ingredients were beyond all but the most
affluent homes but in this regard it seems, the queen was footing
the bill as she enjoyed coffee little realising that for gout it
was definitely a no-no.

As today there
was milk on hand though more to cool the liquid than change it's
colour to the more familiar paler appearance of nowadays and as she
prepared these things she called out to her brother to settle
himself in one of the easy chairs around the scrubbed kitchen
table.

"Set you down here, Jack. Will you smoke a
p
ipe before you go on
your way?"

She enjoyed
the smell of tobacco but it also kept her brother by her just a
little longer. She glanced at her maid busy grinding and saw what
Jack had seen and wondered how to send her away. Her consideration
of that however was postponed as Jack remarked in a low voice:

"So you're
going to marry Masham, sis!"

His sister bridled a little
retorti
ng: "Colonel
Masham, captain!"

Her brother grimaced: "Ex-colonel,
sure
ly, now he's out of
the army."

His sister
looked at him sharply. Ever since their early days together when
all three served in the same household, her brother had denigrated
Samuel and the hostility had not lessened despite their war service
and she did not comprehend the reason. She told him:

"Her majesty
has approved Samuel's appointment to Lord Wndsor's old
regiment."

"Strewth!"
exploded Jack, "That'll make him a lord."

Abigail shook her head at her brother's
naivety, but said nothing except to explain:
"It's in Ireland, at present."

"He'
ll be leaving England soon then," he retorted.

"Aft
er we're married," she replied.

Jack felt discontent
ed and was sure that his old rival was
about to steal a march on him. He made an effort to take the tremor
from his voice when he said irritably: "How the devil did he manage
that? He seems to treat the army as his fiefdom, to come and go as
he pleases."

His sister
could not fail to pick up the bitterness in her brother's voice
which gave her some smidgeon of satisfaction. Outwardly however she
responded as though reproached:

"You aren't doing so
badly
,
brother."

Jack smiled as
put down his bowl of coffee and with a feigned air of hurt, decided
his sister needed a dose of reality herself. He said:

"Your colonel,
sis! You know why he wants to marry you."

Abigail just
looked across the rim of her own bowl of coffee. From her eyes Jack
realised he was treading dangerous ground so started to play the
innocent brother:

"One time I
could talk to my sister, heart to heart." What he meant was he
could talk and his sister listened. He went on: "We even could go
for a walk. The only visitors you had were me or, rarely, that
cousin of yours, the high and mighty duchess, although she has
stopped calling in. But, I'm told you get visits from ministers, no
less. Especially someone called Harley."

"I met the
duke of Somerset on the back stairs. Remember, mistress Hill!" The
comment came from the girl whom they both had forgotten about at
the other end of the table and Abigail was quick to silence her
with a touch of sarcasm which caught Jack by surprise"

"We all seem to be moving up in the world.
You'll be asking to grind the duke's f
lowers soon, Belle. Have you naught else to
do?"

Belle
complained she had run out of flowers and Abigail in relief told
her to fetch more from the drying room and so left the kitchen to
Jack's chagrin and enviously asked his sister:

"So what did
the duke want, sis?"

"What do they
all want." replied his sister cynically, then added wickedly,
"perhaps they like my coffee."

There was a
knock at the door and Abigail called for whosoever to enter and a
page stands there, just a boy and Abigail smiled at him:

"It's you, Peter! Come on in and warm
yourself." He does and stands before the range turning to say:
"It's your affianced,
Mistress Hill. He's at the guard house. I was sent to ask
if he should come up, " He was given an affirmative answer and
promptly left whereupon Jack stretched himself, thinking he should
go but his reluctance to meet Masham was balanced by his desire to
make a better acquaintance of Belle so half-heartedly, he
muttered:

"I'd best be
off, sis!" He smiled inwardly as his sister pressed him to stay.
There was nothing she liked better than to have two males sharing
her kitchen, so she begged: "Stay a while, Jack."

Hearing heavy
footfalls outside the door, Abigail rushed through it and the
footfalls ceased followed by a long silence and Jack jealous of his
sister's absence called out: "Enough of that canoodling, you
two!"

Jack was
exaggerating. Greetings between 17th century engaged couples were
rather formal occasions and Jack would imagine his sister curtsying
to Masham whose own show of emotion would be to take her hand and
plant a kiss on one or both. When the couple made their appearance,
Masham greeted his future brother-in-law formally:

"How do you
do, Mister Hill!"

"Captain Hill,
sir!" he objected while Abigail busied herself providing her lover
a chair, offering him coffee for which attention Masham thanked her
profusely before turning warily to Jack:

"The last time
we met was in Flanders, I think, near a town called Maastricht.
You've moved a bit further towards the French frontier since then I
trust, captain."

"Now then Mr
Masham." interrupted Abigail, "don't you get our Jack talking about
Flanders and such places. It's your news we want to hear. How went
your interview with the Minister for War?"

"Henry St
John! Well enough, though sometimes it was deuced awkward. When is
he going to be told? Because when he is told, he'll think me a
complete idiot or an utter scoundrel."

Jack would
have liked to second that observation but was intrigued as to what
Masham was talking about and at the sight of his perplexed face,
his sister explained:

"You see Jack,
mister Masham's new appointment has not been passed on to him." But
Masham put it more succinctly: "Mister St John was interviewing me
for an appointment, I already have."

Abigail's face was creased with suppressed
laughter at the incongruity of the situation and finally admitted:
"Mr Harley is not ta
lking to Mr St John." Masham was also laughing with Abigail
and mocked her slightly saying:

"Mistress
Hill, your sister, Captain doesn't give the true explanation,
silencing her by fondly patting her hand, in adding:

"It's because
the queen has asked Mr Harley not to tell the minister for war as
the appointment is within his gift."

Jack put it
bluntly when he said: "So this Mister St John is
busy interviewing candidates and all the time the position is
filled. What a way to run the country!"

His outburst
had sobered them stopping their laughter in its tracks and he got
up from the table and, as Abigail coaxed more information from her
lover, Jack wandered over to where Belle was busy having crept in
when they were talking and resumed her place. She might have
thought she was unobserved but Jack was aware of her presence and
he began to feel a stirring in his loins which made him restless
and he wandered to his former window seat to stare out of the
window aware that one pair of eyes was surreptitiously boring into
his back. He could hear the pestle grinding crushing the seeds and
then a bell tinkled and he was taken by surprise wondering what it
was.

It might have been heaven sent for it was
his sister's mistress' bell summoning her after the queen’s
afternoon nap. With sca
rcely a word she hurried away. Masham got up, took his bowl
and using an oven pad, took the jug and poured out another bowl of
coffee watched avidly by Jack who could not resist
observing:

"Making
yourself at home, eh sir. You'll be washing the dishes next."

Masham looked
up sharply at Hill smirking but did not rise to the challenge
saying evenly and with a smile playing around his mouth:

"I learned a
lot in the army captain. There was nobody to mend my clothes but
me. There was no officer’s mess on campaign. I had to fend for
myself. How about you! Who mends your stockings for you?"

Jack was
forced to admit inwardly that Masham had a point but said
defiantly: "There's some who prefer domestic bliss to life in the
barracks or in the marquee. Don’t you miss the army?”

Masham
strolled over bowl in hand sipping occasionally the hot liquid
before placing it on a mat on the table, catching the eye of Belle
who smiled with her eyes before resuming her task. Masham spoke to
Hill:

"I m
iss the bugle call for reveille; the bugle calls to the
cavalry, the rattle of musket fire; the dense pall of suffocating
smoke; the muffled boom of the unseen cannon and then the ball
cleaving its way through a platoon; the screams of men in shock and
agony, and the stench of powder, of blood, of hacked limbs. D'you
recall the shock of seeing the gush of blood when a sabre strikes a
running man..."

He stopped realising too late that
listening was Belle and he saved her from falling to the floor. As
he held her he cursed his clumsy ignorance. She came to quickly and
he apolo
gised to her and
with his arm around her caught Hill looking down at him jealously
and an idea occurred. He comforted her by suggesting:

"I think you
need a walk outside in the fresh air and if you don't mind my
asking Captain Hill here to accompany you. I'll have a word with
your mistress when she returns. How do you feel about that?"

Belle smiled and nodded, and Masham spoke
to Hill: "Well Captain Hill, will you do
Mistress Belle the honour to accompany her
outside?"

The captain
needed no second bidding and offered Belle his arm and the couple
made their way out and Masham could hear their footfalls down the
corridor and then down the steps and then all was silent. Idly he
picked up the bowl of coffee sitting down in Belle's chair drained
the cooler liquid. He was curious as to what she had been doing and
looking into the mortar touched the powder and tasted it.

Even the aroma
of the herb affected him and the taste had the effect of numbing
his tongue and wondered whether after all that it was just his
words that had affected Belle. The powder seemed to possess a
narcotic effect and he could not but help marvel at his future
wife's skill and knowledge in preparing potions for the queen in
her sufferings. He wondered also whether such herbal remedies might
not also find commercial applications outside the palace. He could
see from the queen's condition that she had not many years left so
his future wife's continued employment was limited.